


memories you bury or live by

by mapped



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Dirty Talk, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Frottage, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 13:11:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8802136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapped/pseuds/mapped
Summary: “I’ve never ridden a horse before,” Silver confesses. “And can you imagine, I’m not particularly keen to start now that I’ve only got one leg.”
Silver has never ridden a horse before. Flint asks Silver to ride with him. One thing leads to another.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dee218](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dee218/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Sus!!! <3 <3 You asked for Flint teaching Silver to ride a horse. I, uh, focused on other things instead, but hopefully all good things. I really hope you like this! You're the best. <3
> 
> Title from 'Never Look Away' by Vienna Teng.

“I’ve never ridden a horse before,” Silver confesses. “And can you imagine, I’m not particularly keen to start now that I’ve only got one leg.” It doesn’t terrify him anymore, admitting such weaknesses to Flint. Flint has told him much bigger secrets, after all.

“Ride with me,” Flint says, voice low. “It’ll be safer that way.”

 _Safer_? Silver’s instincts want to dispute that claim. It seems—dangerous, the notion of riding with Flint. Inexplicably, it makes his blood run hot like just before a fight.

It’s dark on the beach, the white sliver of moon mostly obscured by clouds. Billy and Ben are on their own horses, waiting for them.

The darkness is what makes Silver brave.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” he says.

Flint mounts a horse with enviable ease, movement fluid as ink. He holds the reins in one hand, and offers his other hand down to Silver. Silver grabs it and steps into the stirrup, which has been vacated for his sake; the ache in his stump is faint, fleeting, before he puts his weight onto his foot in the stirrup and springs up, one hand tugging on Flint’s and the other pressing down flat on the saddle. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to swing his heavy iron boot over, but he manages it fine.

“Well, that wasn’t so hard,” Flint notes, gentle amusement in his voice as Silver, breathing a little fast, settles behind him. There’s scarcely any room in the saddle, and they’re pressed up together, Silver’s hips snug against Flint’s. He can feel the heat of Flint’s broad back against his chest. 

“Fuck you,” he says, a soft murmur by Flint’s ear. He doesn’t intend for the words to sound as sweet as they do.

Flint’s hand slips out of Silver’s grasp at once like a tiny animal darting from the rustling of leaves, and it’s only when it’s gone that Silver thinks about its calloused texture, its dry warmth.

When the horse breaks into a canter, Silver panics for a moment and his hands come to rest around Flint’s waist out of pure reflex, the simple and undeniable need for something stable and solid. Flint’s inhalation is sharp, audible. He says nothing.

Silver tightens his grip, just slightly.

He keeps his hands there the whole way as they follow Billy and Ben, at enough distance that they don’t eat the dust kicked up by the horses before them. And in fact—

Flint was right. Silver does feel safe. Right here, in the isolated night, close against Flint’s back as they ride, Silver almost forgets there is a war, or that there have always been wars, that war is a thing of human nature. That war is a thing of _Flint’s_ nature, a thing that Flint will always chase.

Sometimes Flint is a war god, a deity formed out of spilled blood and battle cries, and he makes Silver hunger for those very things. It is a hunger whose pangs only magnify with all his attempts to sate it, as if he were Erysichthon of Greek myth, punished by the gods with gluttony that worsened the more he ate, so that he finally devoured his own self. Silver finds he can sympathise with such a fate, these days.

But tonight, he does not hunger. War is an impossible thing that belongs to the realm of ancient myth. At Flint’s guidance, the horse beats its hooves onto the dirt track in a rhythm that winds its way to Silver’s pulse. He keeps his hands on Flint’s waist, and wants for nothing else. 

He does not think he will forget this.

* * *

“Long John Silver,” Flint says, slowly, and Silver cringes.

They are standing outside the house, facing out into the night. Flint’s hands are restless, fingers flexing endlessly. Silver knows the feeling; he’s itching to do _something_ , but he doesn’t know what. Flint probably wants to strangle Billy. It’s a miracle that he hasn’t already tried.

Silver hears in his mind the crunch of Dufresne’s bones, and his own rough voice saying, _I’ve got a long fucking memory_.

But he looks at the shadow of Flint’s face and he knows that it’s not his own memory that is long. John Silver is not a man of memory. His past is smoke, easily cleared with the wave of a hand. What he was—that does not matter as much as what he is now, and _that_ does not matter as much as what he will be in the next moment. It is rare that something happens to him that he does not want to forget.

Flint, on the other hand. What is Flint if not the memory of those he loved?

“Billy’s going to regret it,” Silver says, quietly. “Choosing me to lead this revolution. Choosing me to be his king.”

Flint laughs. It sounds like something startled out of him. He does not ask what Silver means. Silver isn’t sure what he means, himself. Only that he doubts anything’s going to work out the way Billy wants it to.

“Do you know,” Flint says, “I once told Billy that I was his king.”

“Of course you did,” Silver says.

“I’m angry,” Flint says, though there’s none of that emotion in his hollow voice. “But I’m also tired.” Now, _that_ is obvious. “If they want you to be their king instead, so be it. So long as I get to see this war through, one way or another.”

 _You are still my king_ , Silver thinks. He doesn’t say it out loud, but it’s true. He cannot say that he didn’t see this coming, that some part of him didn’t predict Billy would choose him over Flint as their leader. Billy’s resented Flint for a long time, and Silver’s very much aware of his own ever-growing influence. Madi has succeeded her mother the queen, and Silver may have been chosen to succeed Flint without having any say in the matter, but his heart—

His heart bows to Flint. There is something in him that would go to its knees for Flint, for those stormy eyes, those unquiet hands.

There was a time, only months ago, when he didn’t believe in Flint, but he can’t remember what that felt like. Long _fucking_ memory indeed.

“We will see this war through,” Silver says. There’s the war again. It was never gone. How could he have tricked himself into wishing it away? Flint _is_ war, the constant clash of shattered dreams against an ugly reality. “I know in whose name this war is being fought, and I will honour that knowledge.”

Flint turns to him, and Silver glimpses something in his face—a twitch of his lips, a light in his eyes—that resembles joy. “It frightened me,” Flint says. “To tell you. It frightened me, because that is not knowledge that has ever been embraced by anyone who has known it. Only Miranda and Thomas and I, only we knew that what we had was good. But I am glad I told you. Because you recognise too that it was a good thing, and that the ravaging of it, the perversion of his ideals, merits this war as an answer.”

Flint… Flint had been afraid that Silver would no longer be willing to fight this war with him, now that he not only knows but has been handed the reins in Flint’s place. “It was a good thing,” Silver affirms. “I mean, I cannot know, because I was not a part of it, but—the way you talk of it. Of him. It could not be but a good thing.” It feels silly, to make such fumbling understatements about the grand love that has irrevocably altered the landscape of Flint’s world, but Flint seems almost to smile, and then Silver realises that Flint _needs_ this reassurance, this validation, because he has never received it from anyone except the two people who _died_ because of that ‘good thing’ they had.

“Eleanor Guthrie knows this place,” Flint says, after a while. “We cannot afford to use it much longer. She may think to check here eventually.”

“That’s a pity,” Silver says. “I like this place.” He does. It’s his first time here, and the house speaks of a kind of security and peace that he has never known, all of it covered in a grey film of dust. God, how he yearns to turn back time and visit when Miranda was still alive, when the house would tell of more vibrant secrets.

“I like this place too,” Flint says, and his voice is so small that the slightest breeze could snatch his words away. “When I came back here, it felt like returning to myself. When I came back and saw her here, playing the harpsichord, reading, cooking… it was like waking up from a bad dream.” He is looking up at the moon, now visible in the sky, a slim crescent wreathed in a pale halo. His eyes are shining. “I do not like having all these people here, with no fucking idea of what this place was to me.”

 _Am I one of those people?_ Silver wants to ask, but he thinks—he _hopes_ —he knows what Flint’s reply would be. “She wanted vengeance against England too, in the end, didn’t she?” he says instead. “If she was still here, she might not disapprove.”

Flint’s head jolts back a little, and he rubs a hand over his beard. “I don’t presume to know what she would or wouldn’t do,” he pronounces. “She was never what I’d expect. What anyone would expect. If there was anyone better at surprising me than you, it was her.” He glances at Silver out of the corner of his eye. 

“You know, that rather sounds like you’re complimenting me,” Silver says, smiling widely.

Flint rolls his eyes. “Tomorrow,” he says, “I’ll teach you to ride.” His hand alights briefly on Silver’s shoulder, and then he walks back into the house, leaving Silver alone with the slender moon, to contemplate his new identity in its scant light.

* * *

Flint is sitting on his horse, demonstrating—something. Silver isn’t sure what. Posture, perhaps? His mind is drifting. He got little sleep, troubled by his new burden of kingship. Some time during the night he had wandered the house on silent feet, looking at things, flicking through books. He’d felt like a ghost.

Flint is bending to the horse’s ears, speaking to it in a hush and patting its neck.

What would it be like to feel Flint’s weight upon him, to be soothed by Flint’s hands, to have Flint _whisper_ to him—

Silver shakes himself, tossing back his curls, as if the thought might be dislodged from his mind that way. The early morning sun catches in his eyes as he does so, blinding him momentarily.

“Balance is key,” Flint is saying. “Obviously your metal boot may throw you off a little but I’m sure you’ll be all right.”

Silver swallows. “Yeah, I’m sure,” he mumbles.

“Well?” Flint says. “Why don’t you try mounting again? And seat yourself gently, so you don’t hurt your horse.”

 _Mounting._ Yes. Right.

Silver turns away from Flint to get on his own horse, Flint’s gaze a palpable pressure at his back. He feels clumsy, like all his other limbs have been replaced by metal too.

He prevails, somehow, though he winces when he sits down a little too hard, and strokes his horse’s neck in apology. He is greeted by a low, mild noise.

“I think she likes you,” Flint calls, wryly, and Silver makes a sound much like his mare did.

The morning passes in a blur; when the sun is directly overhead, they take a break from the drills and sit down on the grass to eat the food they packed with them, the horses tethered nearby. Silver’s shirt is damp with sweat, but he hasn’t fallen off his horse once, and he’s started calling her Miranda in his head. Flint would probably kill him if he knew.

Silver cuts off a chunk of cheese. “Where did James McGraw learn how to ride?” he asks.

“James McGraw didn’t,” Flint replies. “I taught myself when I came here.”

Silver raises an eyebrow. “You’re clearly not the best of teachers then,” he says. “Am I to rely upon you when you might not even know what you’re doing?”

“Isn’t that always the case, Silver?” Flint says, and the hint of a smile on his lips makes Silver’s heart leap. “Do either of us ever know what we’re doing?”

“Speak for yourself,” Silver says in mock annoyance. “I _definitely_ don’t just make everything up as I go along.”

Flint chuckles now, a rich sound that has Silver feeling even more dazed in the midday swelter. “Oh, you don’t?” Flint says. “Could have fooled me.” 

Silver’s throat is so dry, he nearly chokes on his bread. He takes a swig from the flask of watered-down ale. _Jesus_ , he wants. When did he realise? That night in the cage, waiting and waiting for Flint to come back alive from his meeting with the queen. That night he took Dufresne’s life and told Flint how good it felt. That night he sat across from Flint in the dark forest with buried treasure beneath their feet and Flint proffered him something more precious than that treasure. That night, and every night since. Last night, his hands on Flint’s waist. Last night, shoulder to shoulder on the porch of the house that used to be Miranda’s, looking up at the moon together.

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” Silver says, even as his belly fills with a sensation as frothy as sea-foam, a sensation he’s all too familiar with, as it’s what he feels every time he’s about to do something spectacularly risky. He regards Flint with the cockiest smirk he can summon, and he _sees_ Flint’s eyes drop to his lips.

“I very much doubt that,” Flint says, but he’s still staring, so.

Silver reaches out and puts his hand over Flint’s on the ground, slowly drawing each of his fingers over each of Flint’s. He watches Flint’s eyes fluttering half-shut, and _Christ_ , he _needs_. The frothy sensation in his stomach is effervescent now, seething. He leans forward, tugging on Flint’s wrist at the same time. Flint doesn’t resist at all, but goes with him, meets him halfway, and then they are mingling breath and colliding lips.

 _Fuck_ if this isn’t the most rewarding risk Silver’s ever taken. He draws Flint to him until they are as close as they were last night on the same horse, except this time they’re facing each other, and Silver’s practically in Flint’s lap. His hands sneak beneath Flint’s shirt, settling once more on Flint’s waist, but feeling the softness and heat of bare skin that had not been his privilege the night before. _God_ , how long has it been since he’s touched anyone like this? _Has_ he ever touched anyone like this? With movement more delicate than he’d ever been capable of when stealing past hammocks full of sleeping Spanish soldiers. With so much care, and so much _fear_.

Not fear _of_ Flint, but fear that he will lose this, even though he’s just gained it. Fear that he will not only lose this, but he will be the cause of its loss.

He kisses Flint more desperately, hands skittering up Flint’s sides, thumbs brushing over Flint’s nipples. Flint bites Silver’s lip at that and licks fiercely into his mouth, crowding his body closer, _closer_. Suddenly Silver’s toppling backwards, his elbows hitting the ground; and then he’s lying flat with his good leg hooked around Flint’s waist. Flint’s face hovers above his, green eyes staring into Silver’s. He looks afraid, too. But are they afraid of the same thing? Is Flint afraid of him, or afraid that he’ll lose him?

“Flint,” he says. The name feels wrong in his mouth. It never has, before. “James,” he tries, and it is beautiful how those green eyes widen. “Why did I wait so long to kiss you?” He raises a hand to caress James’ jaw, that beard that felt like heaven against his chin when they kissed. It is the colour of autumn, the sort of autumn that does not exist here, the sort of autumn that Silver doesn’t realise he misses until he really _looks_ at James: and then it’s as if a gust blows through him, unsettling everything golden, stripping the trees bare and leaving them looking like dark hands reaching for the sky, for something impossible.

What memories does James have of autumn in England?

“I’m glad you waited,” James says, voice as raspy as those golden leaves. “There is no hiding here. To do this in daylight… I did not think I would ever…” He strokes Silver’s cheek. His thoughts are short, aborted, but each one still lands like an arrow in Silver’s heart. “We live in too much darkness the rest of the time. To have this, even just once…”

He lowers his head and kisses Silver’s neck, digging his teeth in and burying the rest of his sentence into Silver’s skin, and then they are lost to it, to each other’s lips. They manage to pause long enough to discard their shirts, but not long enough to endure the hassle of shedding _all_ their clothing. Silver clutches James to him while James grinds their hips together in an increasingly frenzied rhythm. It’s agony, the hardness of James’ cock felt through the fabric of their trousers. Too much, and yet not enough.

“Well, in my own humble estimation, it was pretty fucking stupid of me to wait until we were out in the middle of nowhere, with no oil.” James’ laughter is delighted warm breath puffing against Silver’s neck, and Silver shivers. “God, I just want you to _fuck_ me.”

James growls and grinds down viciously. “Oh, believe me.” James’ voice is a tantalising whisper by Silver’s ear. “I _want_ to fuck you. I want to pin you down and fuck you until you can’t remember how to speak, until all you can do with that troublesome mouth of yours is suck my cock.”

Silver hisses and rolls his hips against James’. “Jesus, _yes_ , I wouldn’t have any complaints about that.”

“I’d like to hear you try and complain with my cock down your throat,” James says, and Silver whimpers. He can’t listen to this talk of James’ cock anymore without getting to touch it properly. He jams his hands between them and clumsily works James’ trousers open, shoving them impatiently down, and then James’ cock is in his hands, thick and hot and perfect. 

“Fuck,” he swears, just squeezing James’ cock and appreciating the weight of it, more exquisite than any glittering bar of gold. He can’t take his eyes off it, its gorgeous red flush, its slight curve, and the curls of hair around it, the same autumnal shade as James’ beard.

“Look at you,” James says. “Long John Silver, crowned king by your brothers. If only they all knew how much you wanted my cock in your arse, how much you’ll moan and writhe when I finally get to put it inside you.” 

“I don’t give a shit if they know,” Silver says. “I’m their king.” _And you’re mine._ He rises up a little and chases James’ lips for a kiss; he puts his hands on James’ arse now, sinking his fingers into the flesh and spreading those cheeks apart. James groans into their kiss, and Silver lets his head fall back down onto the ground, smiling wickedly. “Besides, let’s not forget how much you want _my_ cock in your arse, too,” he adds. He dips his fingers into the cleft and rubs against James’ hole and James curses and bucks, his forehead thudding onto Silver’s shoulder.

He raises his head again after a moment and rocks against Silver slowly. “Whenever I think you’ve stopped being an absolute shit for all of two seconds, you just have to go and prove me wrong.” 

“You don’t want me to stop,” Silver says, tracing steady circles around James’ rim and enjoying the way James’ mouth goes slack with pleasure. “Your life wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if I did.”

James grunts but doesn’t deny it; his fingers unlace Silver’s trousers at long last and he pulls them down just far enough for Silver’s cock to spring free. He rubs the heads of their cocks together, and they both gasp. James’ sweat is dripping onto Silver’s face, but Silver doesn’t care at all. And then James is pressing himself fully against Silver, chest to chest, kissing him messily while his cock, his _balls_ drag over Silver’s cock. It’s fucking amazing, but it’s the fact of James’ weight upon him that makes it so unbearably, _wildly_ good. Months ago, this weight would have been a threat, a danger to him. Flint might have crushed him to the ground like this and killed him, slit his throat as he has watched Flint do to others more than once.

But now.

Now, Silver feels safer than ever before. The closer James is, the safer he feels. In this world where so much is uncertain and perilous and deadly, James Flint, monster of the New World, is what keeps John Silver safe.

“John,” James breathes. “ _John_.” And John wraps his arms around James’ back and comes, choking back a whine, teeth making marks on James’ shoulder. James sits up and John misses his weight immediately, feels hysterical with how anxious this little distance between them makes him. But James smooths a hand over the silky fluid of John’s seed that covers his cock, his abdomen, and he feeds it to John, finger by finger. John sucks each of them clean, and it feels so good, each of James’ fingers dragging heavily over his tongue, bringing the taste of the salt tide of the sea. And just as the tide sweeps over the beach and recedes, leaving everything calm and still, John is left with an aching bliss, his mind wonderfully quiet, when James’ little finger slips out of his mouth. 

He watches as James uses his hand, now wet with John’s spit, to stroke his own cock and find release. And all the time, James gazes intently at him, and he at James. Neither of them will look away now.

* * *

John pulls his shirt back on, feeling sticky and filthy and yet _clean_ , somehow. Like a window pane that’s been wiped, the view it provides no longer obscured by dirt.

Clarity. That’s what he feels. Like he knows who James is a little better. Like he knows _himself_ a little better.

He has to agree with James, after all. This sun-drenched plain, the glow of James’ freckled skin like the moon on a cloudless night, the bonfire of James’ beard. Silver will take these things with him into the dark. Even in the deepest dark he will be illuminated by this memory of the two of them bathed in light.

He gets up unsteadily, his limbs still claimed by pleasure, and ambles over to where the horses are tethered. His mare nickers to him. “Yes, Miranda, I’m here,” he says, very softly, as he loosens the rope.

“What the fuck did you call that horse?” James says—much closer behind John that he’d thought. John startles, and then he scrambles onto his horse as quickly as he can. He’s getting good at it.

He gives a few rapid kicks with his good leg, and his horse starts to move. “Race you!” he calls to James, as he speeds off.

“No, you shit!” James yells. “This is not a fucking fair race!” He doesn’t sound angry, of course. Just… exasperated. Fond.

John laughs. The wind streams through his hair as he rides into the endless expanse of possibility before him. There is so much blue sky, and so much light.

He turns back to look at James, who is not far behind at all, but already catching up.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are really appreciated! You can find me [on tumblr](http://reluming.tumblr.com/) where I'm always happy to chat. (:
> 
> And hey, take a look at this [gorgeous fanart by riisinaakka](https://riisinaakka-draws.tumblr.com/post/160274741603/flint-teaches-silver-to-ride-a-horse-the-spark), inspired by this fic!


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